Picasso's Barcelona

by STEVE TURNER, Mail on Sunday

Last updated at 12:00 16 July 2001

Surprisingly, Barcelona doesn't make a lot of what must be its most internationally renowned former resident - Pablo Picasso.

True, there is a celebrated museum dedicated to his work, but there are no plaques marking the buildings where he lived, studied or worked, no heritage trail for visitors. And the only guidebook available locally, Guia de la Barcelona de Picasso, has not been translated into English.

Of course, Paris is the city most readily associated with Picasso, and rightly so, because it was there that he lived during his most significant years.

But it was in Barcelona that the 20th Century's greatest artist came of age and attended art school. It was here too that he witnessed the street scenes that would etch themselves in his memory and inform the ground-breaking work of his cubist period.

For me, the most useful guide to Picasso's Barcelona is the first volume of John Richardson's definitive A Life Of Picasso (Jonathan Cape, 1991), which devotes 142 well-illustrated pages to the period and bothers to mention all the relevant addresses.

It was from this book that I learned Picasso moved to Barcelona with his family in September 1895, a month before his 14th birthday, and didn't leave until he was 21, although he did make long visits to Madrid and Paris.

During these years the family lived in the narrow streets close to the port. Their first apartment was on Carrer Llauder (number 4) and then they moved to Carrer de la Mercé (number 3), but their home is now demolished.

While officially remaining at home, Picasso also rented a series of studios which often doubled up as overnight accommodation.

One of these studios, on Carrer Nou de la Rambla (number 10), was conveniently next to the Eden Concert, a disreputable cabaret venue that was a favourite night-time haunt of his. It is directly opposite the then newly built G¸ell Palace, a private home designed by Gaudí, although Picasso was never a fan of his. He wouldn't be pleased to know that the Eden Concert is now the Gaudí Hotel.

Picasso and his family moved to this area of the city because it was close to the art school, Escola de Belles Arts de Llotja, where he was enrolled as a student and his father was a teacher.

The Llotja remains, but in a sorry state. The former stock exchange of Barcelona (the art school was on the second floor) stands empty and surrounded by builders' fences. There are no signs to indicate its illustrious past and I had to stop a pedestrian to ask if I was in the right place.

The area surrounding the Llotja became Picasso's playground. The narrow streets of the Barri Xino, then Barcelona's red light district, were filled with drunks, drug addicts, sailors and beggars. This was where he developed his interest in low life as a subject for his art and also his fascination for whores.

One of these streets, still there, was Carrer d'Avinyó, and it was the women he met here that would later become the subject of one of his best-known works - and one of the key works of 20th Century art - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

There don't seem to be any brothels in Carrer d'Avinyó today, but there is an air of menace. It's easy to feel like a stranger who is lost and the faces of the locals let you know that you're walking off the beaten track.

The one public building in the street is closed up and the walls daubed with red paint.

When he wasn't partying or painting, Picasso loved spending time in La Rambla, the tree-lined main thoroughfare that leads to the sea. Now that almost every big city has its area dedicated to clowns, mime artistes, painters, jugglers and musicians, the novelty is somewhat diminished. The one difference in La Rambla is the stalls that sell animals packed into small cages.

My Spanish-speaking daughter asked one vendor how he would like to live in a cage. His answer was that the animals liked to live this way.

For a short time it even had its own magazine. Catalonian revolutionaries hatched plots at this focal point of Barcelona's bohemian fringe while poets and painters discussed the newfangled modernism.

Picasso made portraits of some of its prominent habitués and they were exhibited there in February 1900 in what was his first serious exhibition. Els Quatre Gats closed in June 1903 and didn't reopen as a cafe until 1978.

Both the exterior and interior today look remarkably unchanged. A copy of Ramon Casas's El Tandem still dominates the bar area and the restaurant is surrounded on three sides by a narrow gallery lined with dining tables for two. There is a choice of three-course set meals for 2,200 pesetas (£8).

Naturally, the heart of all things Picasso in Barcelona is the Museu Picasso (15-19 Carrer de Montcada).

Although there are some works from his old age, the bulk of the Barcelona exhibition is from the time he spent in the city and traces his development from wide-eyed teenager painting boats through serious student getting to grips with the human form to confident young artist finding his subject matter in the brothels, bars, cafes, cabarets and bull rings.

Frustratingly, the exhibits are described only in Catalan and Spanish. My most interesting insights were picked up from a Japanese tour guide speaking in English to a group of Chinese tourists.

Once Picasso left Barcelona for Paris in 1904 he never again spent any extended time in Spain.

This wasn't because of any lack of passion for the country, but because of political repression.

'He came to love Barcelona and would continue to do so until his dying day,' writes John Richardson in his biography. 'The life of the city - La Rambla, El Paralelo, above all the Barri Xino (was) evoked in his later work more than any other place.'

Travel facts Kirker Holidays (020 7231 3333) offers a range of short breaks to Barcelona. A three-night break costs from £398. This includes return flights from Heathrow, transfers, accommodation, a 'Barcelona Pass' giving discounts on museums, shops and attractions, and Kirker's city guide. Departures from Manchester and Glasgow are £98 extra.